Some Wisconsin representatives spend little time in their home state

Jun. 21, 2014

Written by

Donovan Slack

Gannett Washington Bureau

Going Washington: Reporting the story

Members of Congress are not required to report trips home so there is no readily available public data showing how much time they spend in their districts, a factor constituents often use to judge how well they’re represented in Congress. To determine how much time Wisconsin members spent in the state for a Gannett Wisconsin Media I-Team report, the Washington Bureau analyzed quarterly House and Senate spending records, which detail travel expenses, among other costs. For each member, travel expenses and dates were input into computer spreadsheets that allowed the calculation of days spent in Wisconsin. Travel days were split — half in Wisconsin and half in Washington. The resulting travel schedules were submitted to each member’s office, which verified their accuracy. In some cases, member’s staffers augmented the analysis by providing full flight schedules, which Gannett verified with congressional voting records and public announcements about in-district events that showed where members were during a given date range.

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WASHINGTON — Congressman Tom Petri has a routine when he touches down at Mitchell airport in Milwaukee — he heads straight to the booths across from the terminal to pick up a rental car.

That’s because the vehicle he owns is garaged in Washington, D.C. — where his wife lives, where he claimed a primary residence for tax purposes for years, and where Wisconsin election officials mail him absentee ballots.

In fact, records show, Washington is where Petri spends the vast majority of his time.

He spent less time in Wisconsin last year than any other member of Congress from the state, a Gannett Wisconsin Media I-Team analysis of House and Senate spending records found. He didn’t spend Christmas in Wisconsin, nor Thanksgiving, nor Easter.

All told, Petri spent 95 days in the state —about a third of his time off from Congress and a full two months less than anyone else in the state’s congressional delegation. The other seven House members spent at least 155 days in Wisconsin. Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson spent at least 180 days in the state. That’s out of the roughly 265 days last year that members of Congress were not required to be in Washington.

Time spent in home districts is important, constituents say, because although members of Congress have offices and staff to servethe folks back home, there is often no substitute for personal contact with members themselves. And constituents often use it as a barometer when judging how much their representatives in Washington understand and share their interests — and are adequately representing them in Congress.

“It’s extremely important because I think once a lot of these guys and women get to Washington, they lose touch with what the people want,” said Jamie Pemble, an insurance executive from Mosinee.

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He saw his congressman, Rep. Sean Duffy of Wausau, at a parade in his hometown of Mosinee and appreciates Duffy’s holding numerous town halls across the district, which stretches to the far northern reaches of the state. “He’ll come to little towns and talk to people, make himself available,” Pemble said. “I just think that we need that. That’s why they’re there. They’re elected to express our voices.”

In the Fox Valley, the director of a Menasha food pantry praised Rep. Reid Ribble for his hands-on approach. Earlier this month, the Sherwood Republican doled out food at the St. Joseph Food Program, which serves 1,000 families a week in Outagamie, Calumet and Winnebago counties. It was Ribble’s third visit to the program.

“I think it’s great,” St. Joseph Executive Director Monica Clare said.“We’d like to have more people from the political realm who get an idea of what we’re doing as a community.”

Coming home

Gannett’s analysis showed that newer members of the state’s congressional delegation regularly jetted home on weekends and during congressional recesses. Those elected in the past five years – Ribble, Duffy, Johnson and Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan of Madison – all spent at least 180 days last year in Wisconsin. That’s roughly 70 percent of their time off from Congress.

“I don’t know how anybody could keep current with what’s happening in their districts if they stay in Washington all the time. I don’t get it,” Ribble said. He recalled being asked recently how he keeps himself from “Going Washington.” “And I said, ‘By coming home.’I come home every chance I can.”

Duffy — who bought a new home in Wausau last year and just added a seventh child to his family — logged the most time in Wisconsin, spending 230 days in the state.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, who heads the powerful House Budget Committee that is tasked with putting out massive spending legislation each year, still spent 218 days in Wisconsin.

“Congressman Ryan prioritizes living in the district he represents, being home with his family in Janesville and staying connected to those he serves in southern Wisconsin,” spokesman Kevin Seifert said.

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The delegation member who spent the second least amount of time in Wisconsin was the state’s longest serving member of Congress, Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Menomonee Falls. The 35-year congressman still spent 155 days in his home state last year, two months more than Petri.

A spokesman for Petri, Lee Brooks, verified the accuracy of Gannett’s analysis of Petri’s travel schedule but would not make the congressman available for an interview or comment further about how Petri spends his time. He said the congressman uses rental cars in Wisconsin because it’s cheaper than keeping a car parked at the Milwaukee airport or using a driver to take him to his house in Fond du Lac.

Petri recently announced he would not seek re-election amid an ongoing ethics investigation and a challenge for the GOP nomination.

Growing deep DC roots

Petri, 74, has represented Wisconsin’s 6th congressional district — a swath along Lake Michigan between Milwaukee and Green Bay — since 1979. After 35 years in office, his ties to Washington, D.C., run deep.

He met and married his wife in the nation’s capital — she was a White House lawyer under President Ronald Reagan and he had been in office three years when they announced their engagement in 1982. They bought a home in the exclusive Georgetown neighborhood now valued at $2.5 million where they raised their daughter. His wife, Anne Neal Petri, works fulltime at the Washington, D.C.,-based American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

Petri is registered to vote in Wisconsin, but the mailing address on his registration is his Washington home, and records show that he votes more absentee than he does in person in Wisconsin. He cast absentee ballots in 21 of the last 26 elections, in many cases when Congress was not in session. The five times he did show up in person at the polls, his name was on the ballot.

For several years, the Petris took a homestead exemption on their Georgetown home, which gave them a break on their property taxes that is supposed to be for a principal residence. After the beltway publication Roll Call reported the situation in 2009, the congressman swiftly reversed his homestead claim and paid back the taxes.

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Brooks, Petri’s spokesman, said the congressman often requests absentee ballots because he doesn’t know where he will be when elections are held in Wisconsin. Brooks declined to say why Petri has the ballots mailed to his Washington home.

Political analysts say that if Petri had decided to run for re-election, his residency would have been a major vulnerability, much as it was for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who was defeated in a stunning Republican primary upset earlier this month in part because voters felt he didn’t spend enough time in his Virginia district.

“It is significant if your opponent can make an argument that you don’t spend any time in the district, you’ve grown out of touch with it, you’ve gone Washington,” said Jennifer Duffy, senior analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “Because what it signifies is you’ve become a member of this institution that voters don’t like -- that you’re more a member of that institution than you are a resident of your district.”

Petri’s absence from his district is that much more significant because it’s only a two-hour flight from Washington,Duffy said.

Critics assert that not spending enough time in the home district creates a deeper problem than just providing potential campaign fodder. They say it causes members of Congress like Petri to lose touch with their constituents. And that means the members are not representing them adequately in Congress.

“It’s just a different generation, the old guard, with almost a Washington-knows-best mentality of, ‘We’ll get together with folks in Washington and figure out what folks in Fox Valley and Wisconsin truly need,’” said Matt Batzel, the Wisconsin-based national director of the conservative group American Majority Action. “And folks here want D.C. to listen to them as opposed to being told what’s best for them.”